High-Protein Breakfast Foods: Cottage Cheese Beats Eggs

Of 22 common breakfast foods, raw egg whites give the most protein per calorie, 20.96g per 100 calories, and lowfat cottage cheese is second at 17.22g. Whole eggs come eighth at 8.81g. Every figure is computed from USDA FoodData Central rows: egg white FDC 172183, cottage cheese FDC 173417, whole egg FDC 171287.

The surprise is in the middle of the list. Oats, bagels, white bread and granola, the foods most breakfasts are built on, all sit within a whisker of bacon on protein per calorie, and granola is below it.

High-protein breakfast items, ranked per calorie

Reaching 20g of protein costs 95 calories from raw egg whites, 116 from lowfat cottage cheese, 147 from lowfat Greek yogurt and 227 from whole eggs. The same 20g costs 574 calories of dry oats and 714 of homemade granola.

Two ties are worth reading as ties. Lowfat kefir and whole egg both land at 8.81g per 100 calories, and dry oats and raw bacon both land at 3.48g. At that precision the order inside each pair means nothing.

Cottage cheese matches eggs by weight and doubles them per calorie

Per 100g, whole egg has 12.6g of protein and lowfat cottage cheese 12.4g, close to a tie. Per 100 calories, cottage cheese has 17.22g against the egg's 8.81g, almost twice as much. The difference is fat. A whole egg carries 143 calories per 100g and 1% cottage cheese 72, so the same protein arrives with half the calories.

Egg whites go further still, because the yolk is where an egg keeps its fat. Take the yolk out and protein per calorie rises from 8.81g to 20.96g, 2.4 times as much. Our egg vs egg whites page has the full side by side, and cottage cheese vs egg covers the rest of the two rows.

The cereal problem: oats and granola sit next to bacon

Dry rolled oats give 3.48g of protein per 100 calories, the same as raw bacon, and homemade granola gives 2.80g, less than either. A plain bagel is 4.02g and commercial white bread 3.49g. None of these is a poor food. They are simply carbohydrate foods with some protein attached, and a breakfast built on them needs a protein food added.

This comparison is fair even though the oats are dry and the bacon raw. Water carries no calories, so protein per calorie is the same before and after cooking. The per-100g figures are the ones that change.

Sorted by weight, the list turns upside down

Per 100g, reduced-fat peanut butter leads all 22 foods at 25.9g of protein, and raw egg whites drop to 13th at 10.9g. Cheddar is second by weight at 23.3g and almond butter third at 20.8g. Per calorie those three fall to 11th, 9th and 18th, because they arrive with 520, 408 and 614 calories per 100g.

Which list you want depends on the job. If breakfast has to be small and filling, the per-100g list tells you what packs the most protein into a few bites. If you are counting calories, the per-calorie list is the one that matters, and it favours the watery, low-fat foods: egg whites, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt and skim milk.

Which foods we counted, and what is missing

"Breakfast food" is our choice, not a USDA category. We took the 22 rows in our database that people commonly eat at breakfast: eggs, dairy, breakfast meats, tofu, cereals, breads, nut butters, chia and three fruits. Whey protein powder is left out as a supplement rather than a food. Pancakes, waffles, English muffins and smoked salmon are not in our data at all.

Four rows are narrower than their everyday names. The peanut butter is the reduced-fat kind, the ham is sliced restaurant ham, the sausage is Polish pork sausage, and the kefir is one brand's lowfat plain. A regular peanut butter or a breakfast link sausage will give different figures, and we do not quote numbers for rows we do not hold.

We also give no per-egg or per-slice figures. Our rows are per 100g, and an egg or a slice of bread varies too much by size to turn into one number honestly.

Related

For eggs by count, see how much protein is in 2, 3 or 4 eggs. For the same ranking across every food we hold, see protein per calorie across all 189 foods. And if your breakfast is a shake, whey vs Greek yogurt compares the two most common protein add-ins.

The protein you eat at 8am is the easiest to forget

Breakfast is the meal people log least, because it happens in a rush and looks the same every day. That is also why it is the easiest place to add 20g of protein without noticing the change. Sunn works over WhatsApp: text "cottage cheese and a banana" before you leave the house, and the day's protein count starts there instead of at lunch.